Why Didn't America Nuke the USSR in 1945?

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Britain and the US were allied to the Soviet Union during the Second World War, but relations quickly turned cold after its conclusion. In fact, the Western Allies made several secret plans on how to deal with the USSR preemptively if they were to threaten us - by nuking them back to the Stone Age! As we all know, America had a monopoly on nuclear weapons for more than 4 years. So, why didn't the US obliterate its rival before the Russians got their own nukes, plunging us into the decades-long nuclear paranoia of the Cold War?

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0:00 - Intro
1:27 - Hypothetical nuclear war!
4:26 - 1945 on MagellanTV
5:34 - America's first-strike plan

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Further Reading:

[girl]

"The man in the field, his family at home, they couldn't even tell you the reasons why their lives were being destroyed."
- JFK, Thirteen Days, 2000

[henriquealmeida]

Attacking USSR would be like in Civilization game where you win a war and right away start another one as you still have lots of troops

[iap]

Meanwhile, people playing Civ:

haha, what if…

[Dmitrisnikioff]

It's bizarre not mentioning how popular support for the USSR was extremely high in the post war period and how many socialists were involved in various parts of government and military affairs.

[peterweyland]

Polemic opinion: the british didn't win WW2. Why? The british entered the war to protect Poland, at the end of the war Poland was handed over to the USSR. The british entered the war as the biggest navy in the world, a global super power, at the end of the war they became irrelevant compared to USA and USSR.

[stevencooper]

One note: the Manhattan Project team reckoned they could produce 7 nuclear bombs per month by the end of 1945 if Japan had not surrendered. If my math is correct, that would mean that by the end of 1948 at that rate they would have enough nukes to carry out the Russian strike mentioned in this video, which is why during the Korean war General MacArthur advocated to use nukes on China to force their retreat.

[xqogltp]

Also USSR and socialism was on the pinnacle of their popularity. Such a treacherous attack on Soviet Union would have caused an explosion of support inside european countries and even between americans. It may have even ended in communist revolutions

[prw]

We really, really, really lucked out that the bomb was perfected at a time when it was only to be used against 1 enemy nation, who was then reforged into a stable ally.

Imagine if their usage was more regular before the effects of nuclear fallout were understood, or if they were used against a nation that wasn't fully defeated and built back up with a chip on their shoulder (like 1930s Germany), except a precedent for wide scale use of nuclear weapons already in place.

An eye for an eye makes the world blind, but a nuke for a nuke makes it dead.

[bigburd]

At some point, you just get sick of war

[mathm]

Always a good day when SideQuest posts

[brokenbridge]

In 1945 the Allies were also war weary and that also helped to contribute to them not wanting to go to war with the USSR.

[WHOKAY]

Good topic.
Here’s my suggestion for a future video: How were Britain’s railways built and paid for in the 19th century?

[thefrenchbaguette]

Few points that need to be said
1. Allied division were ~ 50% bigger than Russia division
2. The US had around 3 millions soldier the UK 3 million + 1.25 million from France
The USSR has around 12 million
3. The US and UK captured ~1 million Germans soldiers and 50k-80k piece of equipments (tank artillery aircraft trucks etc) these could be used against the russian as the Germans would probably volunteer quicky to fight the russian in addition they were already trained and could be easily and quickly equipped
4. The US and UK could produce more supplies and get them quicker to the front lines
5. The US could you use it nukes to target major Russian assembly area
6. The USSR simply couldn't launch an offensive that far into western Europe with getting bogged down and out of supply and vice versa
7. The US and UK produced double the amount of aircraft and tank the USSR produced

Point is in this hypothetical war in all likelihood it end up in stalemate that would kill millions for nothing

If you want a video that goes into more detail look at binkov battleground video in operation unthinkable

[Africarespecter]

A big thing to remember as well is in France and Italy in particular had big Communist parties and Partisan movements that would defiantly aid the Soviet Union in a defensive war against the Western Allies, especially right after they just defeated the Fascist menace. This would be Pre Opperation Gladio, so the italian and french communist parties would still have alot of influence and popular support.

[all_time_Jelly_Fish]

2 videos in just over a week? Side quest is putting in some work!

[danielbickford]

This reminds me, Ran across a alternate history story once that I had dropped can't remember what the point of Divergence was, but it was an analogous World War II and Germany had gotten nukes well before America and started nuking the us's cities to get them to withdraw from the war. What the author had their version of Germany do was not just bomber one city or even two, but dozens one after another. After that I dropped it. There's no way a burgeoning nuclear power would have had that many bombs.

[TurtleSauceGaming]

It amazes me how many videos this channel puts out. The scripting and voice acting is awesome. The animation and character design is simplistic but fun. Great channel.

[thalastianjorus]

Easy. Those in power, and even the citizenry, were absolutely horrified by the first two bombs. They, then, chose to avoid them ever being used again. Far too often we, when looking at history, forget that those taking part in the events are humans just like us.

We have a tendency to shrink people in history down to their pre-prepared speeches and quotes. From there we decide that they _were_ those quotes, and that they had no other human traits beyond their actions and quotes. We forget that they, too, had a voice in their head that no one else was privy to. That they allowed themselves to be pushed into actions that they would have rather not done - by peer pressure, monetary needs, and other external pressures. That people will say things they do not truly believe because they fear losing their power or life. Again - we never ascribe truly human motives to those in history, and when they write down their own thoughts? If what they write disagrees with how we have decided that they were... evil or good... we proclaim that the writings are a fake, or that the individual is lying in the text in order to better how history looks at them.

This is why we have lost most of human history. We, always, assume we know what happened better than those who lived it.

[NOGRIZZGUY]

I think the assumption the Soviet union would just sweep over Europe in 1946 for example, is a bit generous. A divided germany was able to push them back at the start and inflicted heavy loses even when retreating. The thought a joined US/UK/French etc would fare WORSE than Germany is... a stretch.

[joost]

I'm glad that your videos are coming out a bit more frequently again, I find them utterly entertaining and interesting.